The Myth of the Well-Behaved Julie

And that thing I learned?

For years, I thought Julie was well-behaved. 

I bragged that she never hopped up on the table, or scratched the couch, or stuck her nose in places it didn’t belong. And it was true, she never did these things. Well, rarely. 

The dog — and her little brother Ron, who will be the subject of another post — routinely elicited yells of rage. The dog would poop inside, or carry her food to the couch, or raid something from the kitchen table. Ron would scratch the furniture, knock things over, and generally make himself a menace. (Ron was very sweet, cute, and well-meaning; but, like most male cats, he was an idiot.)

After a few years of dieting, I noticed this began to change.

Julie went from 17 pounds in 2015 to 12 pounds in 2020. At weigh-ins with her vet, the progress was remarkably consistent:

November 2015: 17 pounds, 2 ounces. I joked she looked like the voluptuous women glorified in Renaissance art. 

August 2016: 16 pounds, 5 ounces. Still curvy, but heading the right direction. Still, I couldn’t tell if this represented any meaningful progress. For all I knew, the difference could have been water weight or a wonky scale. 

July 2017: 15 pounds, 8 ounces. “She’s overweight,” her vet says. “She’s getting better!” I say. 

May 2018: 14 pounds, 11 ounces. No comments about her weight this time from the vet, but I made a point to brag about my mad cat-dieting skills. 

June 2019: 14 pounds, 1 ounce.

May 2020: 13 pounds, 6 ounces. 

April 2021: 12 pounds, 12 ounces. This was for her last regular vet visit, when her vet referred her to the oral surgeon to examine what he thought were dental issues. A few weeks later, the oral surgeon performed the biopsy that found the cancer in her jaw. 

At some point near the middle of this timeline — I’ll say 2017 or 2018 — I noticed she was a little friskier than usual. She’d jump up on the kitchen table; emitting “get down!” calls from Angela and amused indifference from me. 

By the later part of this timeline, 2019-2020, she was a full-on mischief maker. “No” and “get down” were practically her middle names. 

“Julie, no!”

“Julie, get down!”

The kitten Julie was a blur who could seemingly access any part of our tiny Cambridge apartment within seconds. This version was far from the nimble scamp of 2007, but could maneuver her 12-14 pound frame into some pretty impressive spots. We found her behind the washer/dryer, wedged between the fridge, under a futon that at a glance seemed inaccessible. 

Turns out Julie was never well-behaved. She was just overweight.